Delays and Problems at Ingersoll and Whitman Houses
Back in 2004, tenants began getting booted from their apartments at the Ingersoll and Whitman public housing complexes in Fort Greene to make way for a much-needed renovation that was forecast to be complete by this year. In classic New York City Housing Authority style, though, the renovation is far from complete (the finish date…
Back in 2004, tenants began getting booted from their apartments at the Ingersoll and Whitman public housing complexes in Fort Greene to make way for a much-needed renovation that was forecast to be complete by this year. In classic New York City Housing Authority style, though, the renovation is far from complete (the finish date has been pushed back to 2012) and the displaced tenants are still, well, displaced. According to an article in today’s New York Times, 923 out of 3,500 units now sit empty, as long as you don’t count the drug dealers and squatters who avail themselves of the free real estate. This is a classic case of administrative mismanagement, said Assemblyman Joseph R. Lentol of Brooklyn. It’s really pathetic when you think about how long this has taken and how administratively they could have done it better. Here’s a slice-of-life from the one of the complexes:
At Ingersoll, the windows of a few empty units have been shattered. Teenagers who broke into a vacant unit in the building recently left the door unlocked. One evening, there was a bicycle next to the refrigerator, gang graffiti on the walls and a condom wrapper on the floor. The light in the kitchen still worked.
Pleasant.
2 Brooklyn Complexes With a Ghost-Town Feel [NY Times]
Photo from iluvmesomefreaks
In all seriousness, what do progressive urban planners propose instead of public housing like this? In the ’80s it used to be those horrid townhouses. Are we really committed to this form of subsidized housing in perpetuity? I consider my self a hardcore lefty, but right now I am unemployed, living on credit & having a hard time empathizing with my daughter’s classmate’s mom who lives in Ingersoll with her husband and 8 kids. He works & she is a stay at home mom. I can’t afford to stay at home with my kids, but wouldn’t qualify to live there. Many of the other kids I know who live in the projects have parents who can’t emotionally take care of them. I think as long as a girl or woman will be subsidized by the gov’t for procreating she isn’t going to be thinking about birth control. In the former Soviet Union people had 1 kid, because they knew it was all they could afford.
im allowed to hate since my taxes go to the people who live in these human roach motels.
*rob*
Posted by: Butterfly at December 8, 2009 12:25 PM
My sentiments exactly, I don’t want to subsidize condensed human misery in my own city (complete w/ free parking for all the Lexus and Mercedes owners that apparently live there), many times for people with comparable incomes to mine and Rob’s. These high-rise project should ALL be bulldozed. If the city wants to replace it with some sham “affordable housing” it would even be okay as anything would be better. I’m familiar with large public housing complexes, many of the kids I grew up with lived in the projects. They’re probably the worst idea ever conceived in urban planning.
Why do you assume it’s the people who live there breaking in? You can see the apartments are empty from the street. Any opportunist can take advantage.
The quote from the NYCHA general manager is the key to the problems of the NYCHA: ” committed to providing (…) housing (…) for generations to come.”
Ahem, isn’t it exactly what we should NOT want? Public housing for generations is akin to maintain a permanent underclass. It would be much better to stop warehousing poor people in concentrated pockets, which has the unfortunate side effects of cutting the residents off from reliable city infrastructure (transportation, schools, parks, etc)
The middle class tend to bring better services to their neighborhood through the power of complaining effectively, so let us mix in integrated neighborhoods.
im allowed to hate since my taxes go to the people who live in these human roach motels.
*rob*
dont hate
*rob*
Posted by: Butterfly at December 8, 2009 10:35 AM
I recently looked into the application process for an apartment, but dropped after I saw the length of the waiting list. Does anyone know how much rent is?
You are right, rob. So is Minard.
quote:
rob, don’t hate on the poor.
i dont hate on the poor. i hate on the stupid and ignorant and those who lack self-respect. there’s a big difference between those who are poor and those are just human trash.
*rob*